Andrew Parkin's interests encompass governmental and public policy processes, intergovernmental relations within the Australian federal system, urban and housing policy, aspects of criminal justice policy, immigration policy, Australian and South Australian politics, and liberal-democratic theory and practice. He has been involved in a range of teaching programs and initiatives in relation to the teaching of politics and public policy. Among his academic publications are nine editions of Government, Politics, Power and Policy in Australia, the leading Australian textbook of which he has been co-editor, three books dealing with South Australian public life, and two books analysing the Australian Labor Party. Professor Parkin's consulting work has included engagements with a number of South Australian public-sector agencies including the Department of the Premier and Cabinet, the Cabinet Office, the Housing Trust, the Office of Local Government and the Department for Families and Communities. He has served as Editor of the Australian Journal of Political Science, as President of the Australasian Political Studies Association and as a member of the Australian Research Council's College of Experts. Before assuming his current University management role, he was a frequent media commentator on public affairs.

Citation:

Parkin, Andrew, and Geoff Anderson. 2007. "The Howard Government, Regulatory Federalism and the Transformation of Commonwealth-State Relations.” Australian Journal of Political Science 42 (2):295-314.

Abstract:

Various initiatives enhancing Commonwealth power relative to the States within the Australian federation have been a feature of the Howard government that has surprised many observers. These developments need to be understood in the context of longer-term political, financial and regulatory changes that are challenging established features of Commonwealth?State relations. The Howard government's allocation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenue has offered the prospect of greater State-level financial and policy autonomy. But the Howard government has also inherited, and in some policy domains has significantly enhanced, the further development of a Commonwealth?State regime best described as ?regulatory federalism?. Its effect, in contrast to the effect of the GST initiative, is to constrain the States' scope for policy autonomy. A similar impact is emerging from the Commonwealth's efforts to ensure that its conditional grants to the States better serve Commonwealth policy goals and priorities. And a raft of Commonwealth initiatives is bypassing the States altogether. Although the Howard government has clearly enhanced the role of the Commonwealth, it remains constrained by aspects of the federal system that are structurally entrenched and that continue to make intergovernmental collaboration, rather than confrontation, a sensible strategy.

This chapter examines the contribution of political science to the analysis and understanding of Australia?s immigration experience. Australia is a society moulded by immigration which in turn has been to a large extent a function of its political system. Politics has shaped immigration and cultural diversification through the politically manufactured legislation, executive decisions, public expenditure and administrative enforcement that have regulated the immigration process. Politics has also been influential via the politically charged debates and campaigns that influence policy directions. While the immigration experience has thus been something of a consequence of politics, it has also served to shape the political system. By inexorably adjusting the national population, immigration has fabricated the socio-cultural context within which political institutions and practices have been transferred and established and within which they have been imbued with meaning and significance. The cross-disciplinary nature of immigration research means that selecting the topics and academic works highlighted in this chapter on the basis of being not only significant but also of an essentially political-science character is difficult and probably contentious. Naturally, the closer the focus gets to core political institutions and processes ? the executive and legislative institutions of government, policy processes, political parties, voters and elections, and so on ? the more prominent has been the contribution, more narrowly defined, of political science and of its associated international relations, public administration and public policy fields of scholarship. This chapter focuses mainly on a few significant academic subjects arising within this more focused conception of the discipline.

The ninth edition of Government, Politics, Power and Policy in Australia is the latest in the 30-year history of this widely-adopted advanced textbook, providing in-depth commentary and analysis on Australian politics and key policy issues, with a balance of conceptual, institutional, historical and contemporary approaches.